This day, old is new again

By Miranda Coll/Special to The Citizen

Sunday, September 7, 2008 11:56 PM EDT

OWASCO - Idle hands weren't easy to find at the Ward O'Hara Agricultural Museum's Ole Threads Day on Sunday, where more than 20 hobbyists displayed and demonstrated their crafts.
Jill Connor / The Citizen
Evee, of Auburn, helps her mother Virginia Kendrick-Bowser, of Elbridge, pull out the top coat of fur from Dandelion, an angora bunny, so that Virginia can spin the wool into yarn at the Ole Threads Day at the Ward O'Hara Agricultural Museum in Owasco on Sunday.
The museum created the festival three years ago to attract more visitors and to celebrate history in an unique way.

It was quite a sight - broom makers, sock knitters, weavers and more, all sharing the same space and all eager to participate in the show-and-tell.

Women in antique dresses promenaded around the museum drinking tea and posing for pictures and old-time music played inside the reproduction of an one-room schoolhouse.

In the large main room, Virginia Weathers displayed handmade ornaments created by a process called “tatting,” just tables away from a basket weaver, Jeanne Bunnell. Bunnell wove, taught visitors a few tricks and shared stories about weaving with her nieces.

“You've just gotta have a knack for it,” she laughed.

Other booths in the museum had broom makers, knitters, and spinners. Two women spun thread on antique wheels while Dandelion, a fluffy angora rabbit - their fur is sometimes used for thread - looked on.

In the kitchen, Nancy Taylor, of Skaneateles, demonstrated how to darn socks and reminisced about her grandmother's aprons.

At the table next door, Martha Shaw talked to visitors about rug hooking.

Shaw, a member on the museum's board of commissioners, believes the “Ole Threads Day” holds a sort of ageless appeal.

“There's a whole generation out there that hasn't sat down and knitted or woven anything,” she said, “but these people have such tremendous skill and it serves to remember the past.” how to darn socks and reminisced about her grandmother's aprons.

At the table next door, Martha Shaw talked to visitors about rug hooking.

Shaw, a member on the museum's board of commissioners, believes the “Ole Threads Day” holds a sort of ageless appeal.

“There's a whole generation out there that hasn't sat down and knitted or woven anything,” she said, “but these people have such tremendous skill and it serves to remember the past.”

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